Jaising will file a comprehensive note before the Supreme Court’s Secretary-General on the issues of publishing links to video conferences of court hearings on the court registry’s cause list, live-streaming of matters of public importance, and creating audio transcripts of court proceedings.
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THE Supreme Court on Monday granted liberty to senior advocate Indira Jaising to file a comprehensive note before the Secretary-General of the court on the issue of providing hyperlinks of video conferences of court hearings on the cause list published by the court registry every day, the live streaming of matters which are of great public importance but not being heard by Constitution benches of the court, and audio transcripts of court proceedings.
A bench comprising Chief Justice of India (‘CJI’) Dr. D.Y. Chandrachud and Justices P.S. Narasimha and J.B. Pardiwala passed the order to this effect while disposing of the application filed by Jaising.
On November 25, the Supreme Court directed its registry to look into the suggestion made by Jaising urging the court to share links to video conferencing of court hearings on the cause list published by the court registry every day.
When the matter came up for hearing this morning, Jaising submitted that a report should be called from the registry on the suggestion that the court recorded in its November 25 order.
Jaising also argued that as per the Supreme Court’s 2018 judgment on live streaming, only matters which are being heard by Constitution benches are being live-streamed. She submitted that there are matters such as the validity of the marital rape exception, which is pending before a three-judge bench, that should also be live streamed, having regard to the importance of the matter involved. CJI Dr. Chandrachud said he would consider it.
In 2018, the Supreme Court allowed the live streaming of cases of national importance on a plea filed by Jaising. The court had said that “live streaming of Supreme Court proceedings at least in respect to cases of Constitutional and national importance, having an impact on the public at large or on a large number of people in India, maybe a good beginning.”
However, the decision was not implemented for three years. It was only after Jaising wrote a letter in September last year to the Supreme Court judges, requesting the court to begin live streaming of proceedings of matters of public and constitutional importance, when the full court of the Supreme Court gave a go-ahead to live streaming proceedings of Constitution-bench matters.
Click here to read the order.
